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When 6G technology is eventually rolled out to replace 5G, humans might be used as an energy source to power their wearable devices and possibly larger electronics.
“One of the most promising breakthroughs in 6G telecommunications is the possibility of Visible Light Communication (VLC), which is like a wireless version of fiberoptics, using flashes of light to transmit information. Now, a team has announced that they have invented a low-cost, innovative way to harvest the waste energy from VLC by using the human body as an antenna. This waste energy can be recycled to power an array of wearable devices, or even, perhaps, larger electronics.”
Essentially, people would be serving as antennas for “wasted” energy to be directed to electronic devices.
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst created an affordable bracelet that captures VLC waste energy.
“The design is cheap — less than fifty cents,” wrote the UMass Amherst team. “But Bracelet+ can reach up to micro-watts, enough to support many sensors such as on-body health monitoring sensors that require little power to work owing to their low sampling frequency and long sleep-mode duration.”
In 2020, Infowars posted an article detailing a Microsoft patent with technology similarly using humans to harness energy.
The patent basically tracks and uses the human body to mine a cryptocurrency that is generated after the person accomplishes an assigned task.”
Time will tell if potential medical issues related to these technologies are properly researched before being widely used.